


The Ghost of Your Touch

by stileskolpath



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cora Hale & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Cora knows, Derek Feels, Derek Leaves, Derek and Stiles are Mates, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mating, Mating Bond, Oblivious Derek, Oblivious Stiles, Scott Knows, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Stiles Feels, Unrecognized Mates, Werewolf Mates, derek and stiles are oblivious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-26
Updated: 2013-09-26
Packaged: 2017-12-27 16:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/980955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stileskolpath/pseuds/stileskolpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It had been weeks, but the feeling hadn’t gone away. Hadn’t faded one bit. It was frustrating more than anything.</p>
<p>Because he could still feel Stiles’ hand locked within his own. He could still feel the light, wayward caress of the human’s fingers on his shoulder. The ghost of Stiles’ touch was still imprinted on his skin."</p>
<p>aka that time that Derek left Beacon Hills and something kept nagging at him to go back...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ghost of Your Touch

It had been weeks, but the feeling hadn’t gone away. Hadn’t faded one bit. It was frustrating more than anything.

Because he could still feel Stiles’ hand locked within his own. He could still feel the light, wayward caress of the human’s fingers on his shoulder. The ghost of Stiles’ touch was still imprinted on his skin. Warm, reassuring pressure lingered in both seemingly random locations, as if Stiles’ hands were forever attached to those spots.

Sometimes Derek would be doing other things, and he would forget about the constant feeling. It would fade into the background. And then, when all was done and his thoughts came back, the sensations would return, and he would look, trying to catch a glimpse of the ghost that was touching him, only to realize that Stiles wasn’t there. That it was just the feeling. The mark of Stiles’ last touch was burned into his skin, like a brand.

Somewhere, deep down, he knew what he had to do.

"I have to go back, Cora." She gave him a funny little look, the wind brushing through her hair lightly.

"Why?" She asked, pulling it behind her ear.

"You know why. I can’t shake the marks. They won’t go away." She smiled slightly and laughed.

"Why do you look so pissed off about it?"

"Because it’s annoying. I can’t do anything without feeling him there," Derek scowled. "It sucks, and I can’t shake it. I’m gonna go to Deaton and see if he can figure it out."

Cora gave him a knowing look. “He’ll figure it out alright.” She smiled playfully. The way she had all those years ago when they were kids and she would hide Derek’s favorite little stuffed wolf. Derek squinted at her.

"What aren’t you saying?" He asked. Cora’s smile got wider. But she shook her head as she clapped both her hands onto the shoulders of his leather jacket.

"It’s nothing I can tell you, Der. You need to figure it out for yourself." Derek just glared at her harder. "Do yourself a favor. Don’t go to Deaton, just go see Stiles. I think you’ll get all the answers you need from him."

Derek’s scowl softened into a light brood, and Cora smiled, rubbing his arms absentmindedly through the leather of his jacket.

"Will you be alright without me?" Cora laughed.

"Yes. You forget that I didn’t have you for seven years. I’ll be fine. Will you?"

Derek paused. This was harder than he thought. “Yeah. Will you write occasionally?”

Cora smiled again. “Of course. Now go.” She turned Derek around and pushed him towards back up the beach towards the house where his bag was sitting on the porch. As Derek trudged back up through the sand, he heard her call after him. “Remember, talk to Stiles first!”

—

Stiles’ phone went off in class. Morrell shot him a look that could have murdered any lesser human. Stiles mouthed a quiet sorry to her as he shut off the wolf-howl ringtone. He moved to slip it back into his bag, stopping mid-motion when he saw the text was from Cora.

"Derek’s coming back. Needs to talk to you." Stiles’ eyes went wide, and Scott eyed him suspiciously as his heartbeat picked up in his chest. He ignored the look from his best friend and typed up a quick a response.

"When? and Why?" He asked.

The response was almost instantaneous. "You’ll know it when you see him. He’s fine. He just… has something of yours ;)"

"Thanks for the warning… I guess." He never got a response. He slid the phone back into his bag and deflected the hard, searching squint he was getting from Scott. He would talk to him about it after class. When Morrell wasn’t actively trying to set him on fire with her scary-ass looks.

When the bell rang, Stiles traipsed into the hallway, Scott close on his heels.

"What was that all about?"

"Oh, the phone thing? Cora texted me. She said Derek’s coming back." Stiles missed the slight smile from his best friend as they walked back to their lockers.

"Did she say why?" Scott asked. Stiles gave him a suspicious squint.

"Alright, McCall, what do you know?" he opened his locker and gathered a few books without looking, slinging them into his backpack.

His answer was too quick. “Nothing.”

"Bullshit. Tell me what you know, or I swear to god, I am going to crush some wolfsbane into your protein shake."

Scott always broke under Stiles’ threats to his life. Mostly because Stiles’ heartbeat never seemed to falter when he made them. “Fine, fine. Cora texted me too. Something about you marking Derek.”

"What does that mean?" Stiles’ threatening gaze turned to one of confusion. It was a subtle shift, but Scott felt less uneasy regardless.

"I can’t really explain it," he shrugged, thankful that Stiles couldn’t tell that he was lying. "But you need to talk to him.”

"Everyone keeps telling me that…" Stiles said to no one in particular as he closed his locker and gathered his bag. Scott followed him as he walked towards the jeep.

"I’m going to the loft. I’ll give you a call after."

"Don’t worry about it. I’ll be at Allison’s."

Stiles unlocked the jeep threw his bag inside. Scott thought he detected an eye-roll from his best friend.

—

Sure enough, as soon as Stiles pulled up to the loading dock that served as the unofficial driveway for Derek’s loft, he felt it. Something… odd. In his hands. LIke they were holding onto something invisible. Even when he took them off of the steering wheel, he still felt it. He flexed them a few times, thinking it would flush the strange sensation from his nerves, as he climbed the stairs.

When he slid the loft’s door open, he found Derek standing over the long table by the windows, brooding scowl evident even through the back of his head.

Stiles closed the door and shook out his hands one more time for good measure.

He didn’t waste any time with a greeting. Derek knew it was him. Probably heard him coming from a mile off.

"So Cora texted me…" Derek turned around and gave him a surprised look.

"What’d she say?" His eyes were suddenly slightly fearful. Stiles couldn’t figure out why.

"That you had something of mine?" Stiles shrugged. He wasn’t sure what was going on. His hands seemed to pulse with a touch that wasn’t there, more intense than before. He flexed them absentmindedly. Derek’s eyes followed the motion.

"Yeah. I- I don’t know how to say this…" he sighed, and Stiles advanced, somehow, inexplicably drawn closer by something he couldn’t really place. "For the past few weeks, ever since I left, I can’t- You’re just- stuck to me…” He did some kind of gesture with his hands, a vague, waving motion across his body. Stiles thought for a second that he was watching himself in a mirror. “Your hands…”

Something in Stiles’ mind clicked. “…feel like they are touching you.” He looked down at them, the strange, pulsating sensation finally falling into a category he recognized. The touch they felt, the gripping, solidly warm pressure, it was familiar. Derek. Stiles looked back up to catch the tense, fearful look in Derek’s eyes.

He took a tentative step closer, almost in the werewolf’s personal space. Derek made no move to stop him. In fact, he actually kind of leaned into it. In one fluid motion, Stiles closed the rest of the distance between them with his hands, a motion he wasn’t entirely sure he had control over, and placed them against the werewolf’s chest.

Then something happened, like floodgates opening on a dam, it all hit him at once. A rush of thoughts, emotions, and memories all slammed against him, soaking him through to his very soul before swallowing him up completely. The odd, tingling sensation in his hands spread back up through his veins into his heart, warmth of it ebbing and flowing through his veins with each beat.

Everything seemed to fall into place. The planets aligned, the lights turned green, the doors opened, windows shattered, walls came tumbling down as Derek’s everything came washing over him in the deluge.

He felt the odd, gripping sensations in his shoulder and palm, the strange pull that they created. He saw the conversation he had with Cora, the odd, knowing look that she had given him before he left. Strange thoughts about marks and scents passed through his mind along with fading confusion.

The chaos went silent just as quickly as it started, and Stiles felt himself get pulled back into reality with a gasp. His hands were where he left them against Derek’s chest, clutching the fabric of his shirt into fists. Derek’s own hands, no, claws were wrapped around his wrists, gripping the skin tightly. He opened his eyes, and Stiles saw the deep, glowing blue of his irises begin to fade.

He chuckled lightly. “I should’ve known.” He hung his head forward, and Stiles felt something between relief and embarrassment flood through his own mind.

Stiles though he knew, but asked anyway. “Known what?” he leaned down to meet Derek’s downturned eyes, suddenly hyper-aware of his own heartbeat.

“Only a werewolf’s mate can leave a lasting mark on his or her skin,” He recited dutifully in between his own, short, ragged breaths. “The moment that it happens, it is burned into their nerves, and will not go away until they touch their mate again.” He had memorized the passage when he was much younger, one of the biology lessons his mother had given him, Cora, and Laura when he was still in middle school. For a month afterward, they had gone around touching everyone they could, hoping to find their mate. He knew it didn’t work that way now, of course, but the feelings from that memory spilled across his mind anyway, the odd, quiet anxiety that he would feel when somebody shook his hand, or laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder, or brushed their fingers against his when they passed him something.

Stiles yanked himself from the memory that was not his own, awash with every feeling imaginable. His heart was slamming away in his chest.

"So you and I are…" He didn’t know if he could finish the sentence. Derek nodded and flicked his eyes up briefly. Stiles’ face warmed noticeably under the gaze.

"Wow… that’s… that’s a lot to take in. When did… when did this happen?" Stiles swallowed.

Derek unfocused his eyes for a second, and Stiles got a flash of memory of the elevator, of nearly punching the werewolf to wake him back up.

"The hospital…" Stiles breathed, remembering that horrible night that he almost lost three of the most important people in his life. Derek nodded again.

"I didn’t know, though. Cora… Cora knew. She told me to come back. She knew I would figure it out once I saw you. You don’t-" His voice sounded almost sad, like he knew what the human was going to say before he said it. As if on cue, a Stiles began to feel the cold, numbing pain behind Derek’s words.

Stiles cut him off as he let his hands unclench and sprawl over Derek’s solid chest. He could feel the heart beneath it pounding almost as fast as his own. And to his surprise, he was happy. In an odd way, Stiles knew that he kind of wanted this, in some weird, unspoken way. Because it meant that for the first time in a long time, he wasn’t alone.

“Derek, you haven’t scared me away yet. What makes you think this is going to change that?”

Derek let himself smile slightly as he released his grip on Stiles’ wrists. “You sure you want this?” He looked back up to meet Stiles’ gaze, seafoam-flecked-with-gold irises flicking back and forth between amber-brown ones.

Without a word, he leaned in, and pressed the most knowing, pent-up, desperate kiss against Derek’s lips, letting everything that he felt come to the surface, knowing that Derek would feel it too. As the werewolf sucked in a sharp, wanting breath, Stiles knew it had worked. What little distance remained between them was closed, and Derek’s arms slid around his waist, rucking up the hem of his shirt against the small of his back, the warm heat of them settling in his skin comfortably.

“Derek?” He asked as the werewolf began to worry at his bottom lip. Derek growled low in his throat in response, pulling back slightly.

“I’m glad you came back.”

“Me too.”

The ghost of Derek’s lips on Stiles’ own didn’t have time to fade before they slotted back together, locked one-over-the-other with a warm, almost tingling sensation that fluttered his heart. Stiles wasn’t sure was his own.

There would be time later to figure out what this meant for each of them, for the pack, and how they would handle it. There would be a time when Stiles would worry about how he was going to break this particular piece of news to his dad, to Scott (who he figured probably already knew, thanks to Cora), and the rest. But for now, all he cared about was currently wrapped around him, pressed into his lips, and holding him like he was the last thing he would ever touch.

Mates, he thought. The word, like Derek’s touch, left a lingering mark on his soul. But Stiles figured he would get used to that.

**Author's Note:**

> So this was based on a beautiful manip by the lovely Zain (zainclaw.tumblr.com). What can I say, I have a weakness for mating fics...
> 
> Sorry I'm not sorry.
> 
> Thank you for reading, though. Leave kudos and comments before you go!
> 
> And feel free to stop by my blog: watchthewolvesrun.tumblr.com for more Sterek stuff!


End file.
